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Canada  

Crash Samaritan sought

The family of three people killed in a multi-vehicle collision on a Toronto highway is searching for a "Good Samaritan" who may have saved another family member.

Valbona Vokshi, 35, her five-year-old daughter Isabela Kuci and 55-year-old mother Xhemile Vokshi died in the crash on Highway 400 last Friday, according to the family's lawyers.

A fourth woman not related to the family, 27-year-old Maria Lipska, was also killed.

Blerta Vokshi, the daughter, sister and aunt of the victims, and her two-year-old son Aron were in another car involved in the collision. She was also injured in the crash.

They family is still looking for a person who they say pulled Aron out of his car seat after the crash, likely saving his life.

Family friend Katerina Seitaj said the Vokshi family, originally from Albania, expected to celebrate Valbona's birthday on Wednesday. Instead they're scrambling to bring other family members from their home country for support while they grieve.

"They're there crying their eyes out, and the sister and the dad are crying their eyes out here, and they can't comfort each other," she said.

The fiery crash occurred in the highway's southbound lanes shortly before 10 p.m. and involved three transport trucks along with several other vehicles. One of the trailers and two vehicles caught fire.

Seitaj has started an online fundraising campaign with proceeds supporting the family's surviving members.

"Valbona wanted a better life for (her parents). We're trying to do what's best for her family ... for her dad and her sister to be a little bit financially secure," Seitaj said.

Seitaj said Valbona came to Canada in 2000 and worked to sponsor other members of her family, bringing her parents in 2012. She was a working single mother, and had hoped to go back to school.

"(Valbona) was always a very grounded person even though she was by herself, a single mom in Canada. She was well grounded, very caring, respectful, loving," Seitaj said.

Valbona's mother was also taking classes to learn English so she could help support the family.

"She wanted to do more. She was a very, very tough lady."

In a statement read by lawyers at a Wednesday news conference, Blerta said her sister "always put others first" and called her niece an "angel."

"Life is delicate and it is often only during these sorts of tragedies that we come to realize this fact," she said in the statement.

Seitaj said she wants to honour her friend by bringing the Albanian-Canadian community together in the wake of the family's loss.

"(Valbona) would always tell me, 'Our community is not very strong here, we don't have enough events, we don't get together very often,'" she said.

"She loved Isabela. She took her with her. She loved her mom and her daughter more than anything in the world," she said. "They all went together."

Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt has said the crash was "absolutely preventable" and that investigators were looking into the actions of the driver of one of the transport trucks involved in the crash.

OPP say 128 people have died on Ontario roads they patrol so far this year.



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